Learning to paint
by Redemption Moon
Summary: My first fic in over a year! Ahhh... it feels good to be back! As usual, it is a Ken-centric one-shot fic (surprise, surprise) Dark. Angsty. Reviews will be greatly appreciated. :X


**Learning to paint**

Redemption moon.

March 27, 2005 :

started- 3:10 a.m. ; ended- 3:52 a.m.

After a year of silence. Here I am posting arather DARK one-shot. I hope you like it. There may be vague sexual themes. If you're not comfy with that, shoo then, little kids.

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Suspended in space.

That's what it feels like.

Being in this reality is like swimming in a lukewarm liquid inside a silent dark room where nothing exists but the numbness of the senses. Then again, that isn't existence at all. There is no reality in the dark room, because nothing defines it. Is reality even REAL? or is it a mere figment of fantasy?

Will he ever step back onto solid ground or will he forever float in that deep dark space... where nothing exists but a vague fantasy of reality?

_drip... drip... drip..._

It was the sound of water... or was he imagining that too?

_drip... drip... drip..._

The sound persisted, like an unwavering ticking of a clock _'tick-tock tock-tick, Ken. Your time is up'_ it seemed to say.

A mockery.

He opened his eyes.

Nothing.

Was he in the dark room?

A chill swept over him and he realized that he was in reality again.

A drop of water, a leak in the tap. He was in the tub, his lukewarm bath had gone cold long ago. He had fallen asleep in the bath. Again.

The light must have shut off automatically after not sensing motion for half an hour. So he had been out that long...?

He sat up slowly and felt slivers of cold water sneak past his naked skin through the alleys and crevices of his numb body. He felt nothing.

Can you feel numbness?

Sighing for no particular reason, he gingerly stood and cautiously stepped on the tiled floor. But since he couldn't see anything in the thick darkness, he slipped on his fallen towel and came crashing down, his head smashing forcefully on the corner of the tub.

He felt the pain explode in his skull, white hot, rods and circles danced before his eyes in a thousand colors as the very nerve ends of his entire system threatened to ignite.

_drip... drip..._

Every blazing prickle of pain was enhanced by the lack of sensation elsewhere.

Wincing, he steadied and guided himself through touch to the tiny splinter of light emanating from the barely-open doorway.

The moon was up and it was the day before the full moon. It was up there, so perfect and bright like a blazing beacon leading to the shore of a crashing sea. Pale and frail. like a frosted wineglass or a glass lamp.

_drip... drip..._

He looked down and studied his outstretched hand, cupping it involuntarily to catch the drops of crimson. The world was starting to spin like it never had before and he knew that if he succumbed to the temptation of sleep, he would never wake again.

Swaying, slowly and clumsily, he fumbled for the lamp, feeling with intensity every fiber of the carpet under his cold feet. He could almost hear the wind from the open window whistled as it rushed to meet his water-wrinkled skin.

He didn't want to go to the dark room again. He didn't want to see all the dreams and nightmares spinning before his very eyes. In reality, there is pain.

Physical pain.

He liked pain because it allowed him to forget, the way the pounding in his head that very moment made him forget everything but finding the switch.

He fumbled, and stubbed his toe on the foot of the bed. He opened his mouth for a soft yelp, but no sound came out. Indeed there was no sound in the room, but the whistling of the wind.

The light clicked open and bathed him in the golden light. For the first time he could see the state he was in.

His brown hair was dripping. Dripping from water and blood.

The pale mixture made trails and pathways, snaking sensuously down the lean contours of his body, tracing the outlines of the muscles in his chest, his well-toned abdomen, down the insides of his powerful thighs, down his calves trailing and snaking around his ankle before settling into quiet nonexistence in the dark-coloured carpet.

The world threatened to swoon, so he sat, on his bed, watching the crimson stain spread on the white sheets with morbid fascination.

A smile tugged at the corner of his lips, threatening to spill.

He didn't realize that he had a talent for painting.

"Mmmmmm..." The blood swirled and spattered, making exotic patterns on the white canvas of the bed.

A tiny gurgle rose from the back of his throat. It was the sound of drowning but also an attempt at a laugh.

For a moment, the pain was gone and the faces of people he loved or people who made his life a living hell swam before his eyes like tiny angelfishes and he drove them away.

He preferred reality and pain over memories and sentiments because in reality, someone was always watching him. He was never alone with his ugly past.

A deep gurgle rose from his lips now as he became aware of muffled footsteps.

_He's coming..._

Ken was never alone.

Never alone.

_He_ must've been watching him all that time. From the moment he stepped into the room, in the darkness as he struggled to stat afloat in the dark room- _he_ was watching.

" You're beautiful." The whisper was husky, with an underlying tension of greedy lust. Warm fingertips trailed like butterflies on his back, smudging the painted patterns, destroying the crimson tattoos.

"You're perfect."

Warm breath on his shoulder, his earlobe, his temple. Soft fingers crawled on his scalp, circling... circling to find the valley from which his lifeblood gushed out.

He was getting dizzier now. He knew it wouldn't take long... soon.

He was losing his strength.

He slumped back into the waiting arms of the man he never understood, but a man who understood him.

Soft, scarred hands traveled from an unseen source, gently roaming on golden skin. The lust was evident... but restrained by genuine tenderness.

He gave a small sigh as his protector lifted him in _his_ arms and laid him full upon the bed.

Ken Hidaka, in his naked glory. Stretched like a dying god upon a bed of crimson painted flowers.

The pale hands groped him, touched him- and he writhed, moaning in pleasure, in pain, in hope and in inevitable despair.

He was dying now, and he knew it. He would never see the people he loved, those he yearned to protect ever again.

How deplorable then that the only person who could fully understand him reveled in his anguish!

The red paint was spreading, splashing.

Amidst the pain, he felt hot kisses trailing up and down his torso like hot wax.

_What a way to die..._ he thought, lying prone upon the soft mattress.

He always expected to die in a huge explosion, or a duel. But then again, he was in a duel now. He was held captive by the madman whom he had always fought with the intention of killing. He had never thought that the maniac would keep him alive for as long as _he_ had.

He had never imagined.

" You're beautiful… magnificent." It was murmur of intense appreciation.

No one had ever said that about him before.

He smiled. Pearly-white teeth were now dyed with red.

He smiled at the man who said he was beautiful. He smiled at the man who taught him to paint with scarlet long ago, in the recesses of his innocence.

His rescuer.

His murderer.

He moaned, his eyes dimming, getting glassy as the dark room threatened to swallow him whole.

But there was no reason to fear. He wasn't alone.

He shouldn't be afraid of the dark room.

It needn't be black. He had already learned how to pain after all.

He would paint it red: red for blood, red for hate... red for love.

And then he would settle... and float in the lukewarm water, be suspended in space like a bronzed angel, feeling hot invisible kisses trailing up and down his body, as he watched the golden glow of the lamp at the end of the tunnel of eternity.

The golden glow of a lamp... or a golden eye...

Because _he_ was always watching.

Just watching.

Ken Hidaka, the dying god... was never alone.

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For the first time in a year, I am free to write. The workload is a little lighter nowadays and I'm thinking it will last one or two more weeks. So expect something or another from me. Maybe a chapter of 'Moonbeams in your smile'! XD

Like this one-shot? Hate it?

Tell me about it.

Review.

Thanks.


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